Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 May 25

= May 25 =

Question about a word found in the article Hindu milk miracle
In your article entitled "Hindu milk miracle," the word "vikramaditya" appears under "Scientific explanation" heading. What does this word mean? I looked in dictionaries and in search engines, but could locate a meaning. It was printed unitalicised, so I think it was represented as an English word. 210.84.36.154 (talk) 00:31, 25 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Vikramaditya is an name meaning "power-sun" in Sanskrit (and the name of several ancient kings), but my suspicion is that it's just vandalism or an editing error. You could ask user 218.186.17.244, who added it on April 11, 2011. Lesgles (talk) 01:15, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Billfold or Wallet
I once saw in an American English to British English handbook that wallet is British and billfold is American. What is it really? PS: I saw the wiki article for Wallet; it doesn't mention billfold except in the intro. This says it is a US and Canadian word for wallet.--The Emperor&#39;s New Spy (talk) 00:44, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
 * American here. I've heard the term billfold before, but I know of few Americans in my everyday interaction who use it on a regular basis.  Almost everyone I know and have known in my life calls it a wallet.  The term is known, but not common, in America.  I have no idea about the UK, Australia, South Africa, or anywhere else, but here it's a known but not common term.  -- Jayron  32  00:49, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I've heard the word "billfold", presumably in an American movie or TV show, but nobody in Oz ever uses it. --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  01:03, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I would call "billfold" an old-fashioned word, kind of like "pocketbook" for a woman's small purse. I would say "wallet" is pretty common usage in America. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:13, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
 * For what it is worth, I did a little work on Google ngrams to look at the frequency of the two terms. Of note: 1) Wallet does now and has always vastly dominated in usage over billfold.  2) Billfold saw a bump in the 1940s-1950s, which is my sense: I associate the term with people at least 2 generations older than me.  3) The difference in usage cannot be explained as "US vs British english" differences, in the sense that if "billfold" was common or dominant in the U.S., it would be close to, or even surpass, the usage of "wallet" at Ngrams.  Billfold appears to have always been in minor usage.  Which is not to say that it isn't a primarily U.S. term, but rather that it is NOT the dominant term in the U.S. for the object.  Or to say it another way, the term may or may not be purely American in usage, but even in America, it is not now, nor does it appear to have ever been, widely used.  -- Jayron  32  01:17, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The word "bill" in this sense is not used in the UK either, except when referring to "dollar bill". The usual word is "note". 86.146.106.208 (talk) 01:44, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The history of these terms may be of interest: ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:45, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
 * 'Bills' in UK English means underpants (coming from Bill Grundys - undies) so a 'billfold' would be a fold in your underpants (or a method for doing so) but 'bill' also means a demand for payment. We use 'notes' for money. 'The Bill' also means Police, for some reason.  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  05:48, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
 * All of our American currency carries the words "Federal Reserve Note", but I've never heard any American refer to a bill as a "note" in normal usage. In literature we might refer to "banknotes" in prose or poetry - I'm reminded of the Owl and the Pussycat who went to sea, and brought with them "plenty of money, wrapped up in a five-pound note". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 06:46, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
 * So if I ever go to America, if I meet a guy called 'Bill', I should call him 'Note', instead, just to be British. Duly billed. Cheers.  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  07:28, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
 * In 1966 Australia changed from pounds, shillings and pence to dollars and cents. A major "character" in the TV advertising campaign (see fun video here) to explain it all to the masses was "Dollar Bill". It's the only time I can recall the term "bill" being used for Australian currency, so I'm not sure how effective the campaign was. Interestingly, we gave up paper money for our dollar less than 20 years later, using a nice gold looking coin instead. So, no dollar bills in Australia. HiLo48 (talk) 07:37, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I've lived in England all my life and have never heard 'bills' meaning underpants. Sounds like a bit of made-up rhyming slang.  'The Old Bill' for the police (not 'the bill' except for the TV show) is real but perhaps a bit dated.  And if I saw 'billfold' I would think it was American.  Sussexonian (talk) 08:47, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The most likely explanation for "Old Bill" is that policemen were likened to Bruce Bairnsfather's cartoon character of the same name, a grumpy and sarcastic old veteran with a walrus moustache. I've lived in East London all my life and never heard of "Bills" meaning underpants, but you never can tell. Alansplodge (talk) 12:33, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, the OED marks "billfold" as just American, with an earliest cite of 1895. I've never heard it here in the UK except in American films.  I think Alan's walrus moustache cartoon explanation of "Old Bill" seems to have most support.  The OED says: "The origin is uncertain. It may have arisen from subsequent use of the cartoon character, depicted in police uniform, on posters in a Metropolitan Police recruitment campaign of 1917, and later during the Second World War (1939–45) giving advice on wartime security. Among other explanations that have been suggested are that it is from the association of police officers prior to the Second World War with ‘Old Bill’ moustaches; from the ‘bill’  used as a weapon by 18th-cent. constables; or from the registration letters BYL originally used on cars belonging to the Flying Squad."  The earliest cite given by the OED is from 1958.    D b f i r s   20:25, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I have never heard the term billfold, except in films, either. (But unlike Bugs, I do still say pocketbook.) μηδείς (talk) 21:28, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It's what my grandmother called it. :) Interesting to note it's still in use. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:37, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I suspect it's regional (Philly/New York City for me), and depends on the item. A small strapless one is a purse, a big one with a strap is a pocketbook, where I come from, and with people I am familiar with.  I have no female friends under 30, but all I know would agree with the distinction I just made. μηδείς (talk) 21:20, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It might have gone in and out of favor in various regions. My grandmother was a lifelong Midwesterner. There's also the "sack" vs. "bag" thing. In the Midwest we talk about a grocery bag, whereas in, say, the New York area a "bag" is a large purse, and a grocery bag is a "sack". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:50, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I called my mother, who went to public school in Philly and is in her 70's. She says the general word is handbag, and that a pocket-book is usually large with straps and has internal pockets like office files while a purse doesn't usually have a strap.  She agrees people say purse when they should be saying pocketbook. μηδείς (talk) 01:56, 27 May 2013 (UTC
 * Bills (Bill Grundy's) as ?cockney slang for pants (undies), come on Kage, where have you heard that. I'm 65 plus years old in the UK and never heard it in my life. The idea that cockneys, or anybody forming this type of dry humour slang, would refer to 'undies' is hard to believe. Richard Avery (talk) 07:17, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
 * In Australia the rhyming term Reg Grundys is occasionally used for undies. Reg was a bit of an entertainment entrepreneur, so the term is possibly used more by those in that industry. This has nothing to do with bill, but does say that such rhyming slang exists. HiLo48 (talk) 07:52, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
 * My uncle (born in the 1930s) used the term "billfold", but in his case he used it literally. He kept both a billfold (essentially a simple wallet, with little more than cash) and a wallet (with ID, credit cards, etc.) on him when he went out. I don't know where he picked up the habit, but the stated purpose was to give up the billfold in case of mugging/robbery. The thief would get the cash they wanted and my uncle would keep the ID and cards he needed. Matt Deres (talk) 20:19, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Chipping/Koping
I was struck by the identical meaning and similar pronunciation of: Chipping (English) Koping   (Swedish - with an umlaut over the o)

Both mean market town and are part of many city or town names in both countries.

Google does not mention any linguistic relationship however. I believe there is one since Britain was invaded and occupied for a long time by the Norse whose language must have had influence on English. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.243.102.237 (talk) 16:54, 25 May 2013 (UTC)


 * According to article Köping, the word "Köping" is "cognate to the English toponymical name Chipping", but Chipping Norton says that "Chipping" is "from Old English cēping, meaning 'market'". So would that mean the common ancestor of those words was from an ancestor language that predated both Old English and some old Scandinavian language? Hopefully an expert will be able to clarify the relationship. 86.128.5.101 (talk) 17:04, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
 * They are both Germanic languages, although they belong to different branches. Our article on Old Norse says; "Old English and Old Norse were closely related languages, and it is therefore not surprising that many words in Old Norse look familiar to English speakers, e.g. armr (arm), fótr (foot), land (land), fullr (full), hanga (to hang), standa (to stand), etc. This is because both English and Old Norse stem from a Proto-Germanic mother language." Alansplodge (talk) 19:31, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Elof Hellquist's Svensk etymologisk ordbok (see ) and Svenska Akademiens Ordbok both say that "köping" means market in Old Swedish. There seems to be different theories regarding the origin of the word. One idea is that it is a compound of köpa ("buy") with either äng ("meadow") or the Old Norse -angr ("cove"). Another theory is that köping is a verbal noun of köpa. Gabbe (talk) 19:48, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
 * (ec) They are indeed cognate. Compare also German kaufen - "buy". In Old English cēap the initial consonant was palatalised to /tʃ/ by the following front vowel, giving us the modern word "cheap", and the names "Chapman", "Chipping" and "Cheapside" (street name in many towns). In German, Dutch and the Scandinavian languages the related words did not have front vowels, and the initial consonant remained as /k/. More recently, in the Scandinavian languages the vowel has moved forward to /ø/, and in Swedish, but not in Danish, this too palatalises the initial consonant. So Copenhagen, whose pronunciation in da:København is given in our article as [kʰøb̥m̩ˈhɑʊ̯ˀn], but in Swedish sv:Köpenhamn is pronounced with an initial /ɕ/. --ColinFine (talk) 19:52, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Possibly not unrelated are the Russian words kupit' ("to buy"), and kupets ("merchant"). --   Jack of Oz   [Talk]  20:59, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
 * ColineFine's and Jack's answers are correct. The English word "cheap" and the Ruthenian verb kupiti "to buy" kupovati "to go shopping" are also cognate. μηδείς (talk) 21:26, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Etymonline says 'cheap' is probably from an early Germanic borrowing of the Latin 'caupo', meaning 'petty tradesman'. Did the slavic languages then borrow it from Germanic?   KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  07:25, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
 * According to the etymological dictionary I cited above, yes. It says that the likeliest hypothesis is that the ancient Germanic verb *kaupōn is formed from the Latin caupo (which according to Hellquist means "a merchant, particularly of wine") so that *kaupōn originally meant "having dealings with a caupo". Hellquist says that some researchers dispute this and think that the word is indigenously Germanic. Regardless, the Slavic languages then borrowed it from the Germanic. Gabbe (talk) 10:17, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Vulgate
I'm looking to make translating some of the Vulgate my summer project. I was wondering what would be a good text to use. I was looking for something with similar notes/commentary as might be expected in something like a Green and Yellow text, but the results I'm finding on Amazon don't seem to be quite what I'm looking for. Also, is the vocabulary going to be different or specialized enough that I would need a specific dictionary to help me with it? Thanks. 67.164.156.42 (talk) 21:52, 25 May 2013 (UTC)


 * As in the Latin Vulgate Bible? The vocabulary, grammar, and syntax is a bit different if you're used to strictly classical Latin, but it's not particularly difficult once you get used to it. I'm not sure about a version with notes - personally, I like the Stuttgart edition, which does have notes, but they're all in Latin too... Adam Bishop (talk) 00:27, 26 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Fifth edition Stuttgart is ISBN 978-3-438-05303-9. Revised 1986 Aland edition is 978-3-438-05300-8. Both of. These are standard scholarly editions. -- Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 02:05, 26 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I don't know of any edition with linguistic notes in English, but as you may know already, there are a gazillion translations and commentaries online (Bible Gateway, Bible Study Tools, etc.). Also, New Advent has a version in Greek, Latin, and English with some notes, and Perseus has a Vulgate where the words link to their word study tool and the Lewis & Short dictionary. Lesgles (talk) 18:00, 26 May 2013 (UTC)


 * LatinVulgate.com has the Vulgate text alongside Douay-Rheims (which is a straight translation of the Vulgate) and the KJV. Douay-Rheims Bible Online also has the DR and Vulgate texts together (although this doesn't help for notes). Adam Bishop (talk) 20:32, 26 May 2013 (UTC)